One month from today, on Tuesday, June 7, 2011, my daughter will graduate from high school. It's been a long road, what with discovering that she has Long Q-T Interval Syndrome (a heartbeat irregularity that is potentially fatal) and then that she has ADD. Luckily, both seem to be mild. Which is good, because her Long Q-T precludes her taking any of the usual medications prescribed for ADD.
It's going to be interesting to see how she copes with both when she is fully on her own, away at college, with no Mom or Dad to play prescription police, or homework police, or deadline police.
I would like to think that she has developed the necessary skills to cope and to function highly in her new academic environment. Then I walk past her room.... (Ba-dump bump.)
In all seriousness, I hope that she will be okay, but if not, we'll deal with it. Not many journeys are filled with nothing but success. I know that in my own case I had a rough first semester at the University of Virginia, nearly losing my scholarship as my sudden independence from home led to sloppy studying, too much partying, and a rude awakening of my first grades in the C- or D level. Luckily I woke up and pulled out of the tailspin and wound up graduating with U. Va.'s version of Summa Cum Laude ("With High Distinction" is what it's called at Virginia. Virginia stubbornly has its own language for just about everything, but this is an entire blog entry all by itself.)
Meanwhile her days are filled as the year wraps up, and I am also busy helping where I can -- addressing graduation announcements, helping her study for AP exams, and so forth. So far I have been more excited as she prepares for the next step on her journey than I have been sad that her journey will take her away from home.
Which is not to say that there haven't been some sad, sad days for me. I think those first few weeks of just me and the dog waiting for my wife to come home from her work are going to be very, very tough....
On a completely separate note, and in keeping with the "more excited" part of things, today is the last Free Comic Book Day we will be able to have together before she goes away! If you don't know about Free Comic Book Day, get out the yellow pages, find a comic book store, and go to one today. You'll get at least one free comic book (duh) and get to see that it's not all just Big Bang Theory geeks who frequent comic shops. There is usually a wide variety of books from which to choose, and you might just discover why comics are considered to be one of the only two truly American art forms to have emerged into the world. The other one is Jazz. Which in my opinion puts comics in pretty good company.
It's going to be interesting to see how she copes with both when she is fully on her own, away at college, with no Mom or Dad to play prescription police, or homework police, or deadline police.
I would like to think that she has developed the necessary skills to cope and to function highly in her new academic environment. Then I walk past her room.... (Ba-dump bump.)
In all seriousness, I hope that she will be okay, but if not, we'll deal with it. Not many journeys are filled with nothing but success. I know that in my own case I had a rough first semester at the University of Virginia, nearly losing my scholarship as my sudden independence from home led to sloppy studying, too much partying, and a rude awakening of my first grades in the C- or D level. Luckily I woke up and pulled out of the tailspin and wound up graduating with U. Va.'s version of Summa Cum Laude ("With High Distinction" is what it's called at Virginia. Virginia stubbornly has its own language for just about everything, but this is an entire blog entry all by itself.)
Meanwhile her days are filled as the year wraps up, and I am also busy helping where I can -- addressing graduation announcements, helping her study for AP exams, and so forth. So far I have been more excited as she prepares for the next step on her journey than I have been sad that her journey will take her away from home.
Which is not to say that there haven't been some sad, sad days for me. I think those first few weeks of just me and the dog waiting for my wife to come home from her work are going to be very, very tough....
On a completely separate note, and in keeping with the "more excited" part of things, today is the last Free Comic Book Day we will be able to have together before she goes away! If you don't know about Free Comic Book Day, get out the yellow pages, find a comic book store, and go to one today. You'll get at least one free comic book (duh) and get to see that it's not all just Big Bang Theory geeks who frequent comic shops. There is usually a wide variety of books from which to choose, and you might just discover why comics are considered to be one of the only two truly American art forms to have emerged into the world. The other one is Jazz. Which in my opinion puts comics in pretty good company.
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